The USA Today/Gallup Poll clearly overcounted Republicans...

[jackbourassa]

First there is Bush at 44%, which NO ONE ELSE IS SHOWING...

Then there is the Democrats and Republicans tied at 48%. Which incidently, according to their "registered voter" count actually shows Democrats ahead by 9% (51% to 42%). I hate it when Gallup tries to tell people who will and won't vote. Because their "likely" models are ALWAYS off and ALWAYS overcount Republicans and undercount Democrats.

Then they showed that Americans who are for the war is now tied with those against it (with 49% each). Off by about 10% or more from what other polls are showing.

Isn't it clear that they OVERCOUNTED the Republicans in this poll? Isn't this what Gallup does in every election? Show Republicans with larger leads than they actually have and then "correct" the numbers in the days before the election to demonstrate how "accurate" they are for future references. Isn't this what they did in 2004, when they gave Bush a 12% lead after his convention? Remember Dems screaming from the rooftops about how Gallup had overcounted Republicans then? Then after the debate, Kerry "surged" to trail by only 2%. There was NO SURGE. Kerry always trailed by 2%. The only difference between the polls, showing Bush ahead by 12% and then by 2%, were the number of Republicans being counted in the poll. Well, they're at it again.

Don't buy it people...it ain't happening. They're trying, they're trying real hard...

Does anyone have the "internals" to that poll? That will tell us what's up.

[Monkeyman]

1. Got something from leadership office he at 40%

[jackbourassa]

2. What "leadership office?"

n/t

[Monkeyman]

3. Nancy's

[jackbourassa]

6. Okay...thanks!

40 sounds about right. It's what Rassmussen is showing as well.

[MissWaverly]

4. they should have a disclaimer "poll from Wally World"

you know from the movie with Chevy Chase, the land of make believe.

[Sam Odom]

5. Does NOT matter

Avg citizen Joe/Jane will only hear the #s. Deception is on going.

[fooj]

7. Here's some more info...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2835585&mesg_id=2835585

[jackbourassa]

8. Thanks Fooj

This was the key finding "about how Gallup allows party biases for likely voters to infect key results."

(Read it - it's a Harvard Study):

http://gking.harvard.edu/files/preelection.pdf

Again thanks Fooj.

[fooj]

18. You are very welcome.

It's a team effort!:hi:

[suziedemocrat]

9. Look for the polls to start to look fishy - to make the bogus election

look less bogus!

[Sadie5]

10. Exactly what they are doing

They stretch *s #s to make them look high then it will be much harder to prove election fraud as they are so close.

[flyarm]

14. start to look fishy?? i have been saying it since Aug...and i warned

about it in Aug..its how they have done the stealing of our elections in Fla for 3 elections..now the only difference is now the rest of you will have the machines..and you will see what we in fla have been dealing with for 3 elections..
i kept warning watch how the polls change in Aug..and they have not disappointed me ..they are crooked sob's!

fly

[AX10]

20. Exactly!

[mom cat]

11. Its the Diebold factor. They are calculating the margin of a Deibold

theft and adjusting for it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Again???

[napi21]

13. I'm not sure that I don't Want the polls to be artificially inflated.

MAYBE the Pubs won't feel like they HAVY to vote! After all, it is only a mid level election and their hero isn't on the ballot!

[PATRICK]

15. "Likely voter" weighting?

The usual assumption might be a superior GOTV by Republicans and unwavering party line voting. Also I don't think really the Dems have cracked the mystery of attracting GOP voters by playing possum or GOP lite. There is an intractable prejudice against Dems that is just as stupid as loyalty to Republicanism no matter who is leading it by the nose. In that case one cannot pander to either delusion but instead must be absolutely genuine and match it the only way such people respect- with conviction and force.

The justification for their weighting itself is probably prejudicial. How polls are skewed is important and interesting.

You know this however. The strident screeching, no matter how dumb and possibly counter productive it seems, does impress wavering voters when simply unopposed by "quietist" Dems who are afraid to make mistakes and think laying back is enough. Many many Dem candidates are not passive, but the general impression in the Noise Machine is puffing up leaky dead balloon with temporary hot air for November including an infantile and alarming appropriation of Hitler analogies for the main parrot talking points.

Pop it, stop it.

[Raster]

16. Gallup = rethuglican shills. Plain and simple.

Look at their track record. Gallup CONSISTENTLY overstates rethuglican positions. CONSISTENTLY. They can't steal another election with the numbers so far apart. They need to make it much easier to steal.

[Joanne98]

17. Gallup ALWAYS over counts Bush support. Gallup LIES!

[ProgressiveEconomist]

19. A less conspiratorial explanation: cell-phone-only bias

The "Fortunate Son" may be benefiting from a trend in telephone survey research that Gallup alone among major polling companies is ignoring. To carry out a poll, companies like Gallup most often use "random digit dialing" in landline telephone exchanges.

But cell-phone exchanges have to be excluded. Would you want large corporations calling you at your expense for half an hour at a stretch? Thus those who are more likely to have only cell-phones are less likely to get into telephone samples. This trend started to affect telephone surveys at the end of the 90s. The proportion of adults reachable only by cell-phone is now up to about 7 percent and may reach 10 percent by the 2008 campaign season.

Who's more likely to be reachable only by cellphone? Why, the young, the mobile, and those more open to new ways of living. In other words, Democrats.

Virtually all survey companies recognize this problem with their "sampling frame", and apply statistical adjustments for "party identification" to remove any biases arising from it. Gallup stands alone in refusing to do this, ostensibly for the purest of purely "technical" reasons. But guess who may have benefited from this new wrinkle in the ability to carry out accurate survey research?

[goclark]

21. I don't buy it but the NeoCon News is buying it and selling it

I have heard them repeat it over and over and over and over and over again, all damn day! :puke:

[farmboxer]

22. Preparation for the Repub manufactured and programmed voting

machines? Are Repubs planning another fixed election?

If a real election were held, Dems would win easily, but with the voting machines, well, it so appears that Bush is counting on them.

[Awsi Dooger]

23. We were wrong in 2004, not just Gallup

In 2004 Gallup and other polls detected a party ID shift toward the Republicans. Sites like DU insisted the weighting should reflect the standard +3 or +4 Democratic edge. Turns out we were wrong. The exit polls and other surveys indicated party ID was virtually dead even in 2004. So the poll adjustments we were screaming for would have been almost as innacurate as Gallup was.

In 2006 the party ID edge has returned to our favor, primarily due to rescued support from white women. That's the fantastic news. The idiocy was we spent this cycle dependent on a backlash against Bush instead of boosting our own favorables and providing voters a reason to back our side, regardless of their opinion of Bush and the GOP. That strategy is never going to pay full dividends but I've always said our handicapping sucks so why should I ever expect a change? The polls will naturally close when the other side is not viewed as negatively as we anticipated.

Somehow, we need an outside event to drag Bush down again. Maybe the interrogation of the detainees. What we can't do is waste the remaining 6 weeks with desperate flails against Bush. Nothing we say has any impact on his approval numbers. You would think that would be clear by now, 2+ years of evidence. We can still influence how we are viewed in November. If we make no attempt and rely purely on a vote-against strategy, our gains will be disappointing and justifiably so. You can't keep making basic mistakes, like nominating a New England senator and not putting any quick memorable sound bite themes into the national vocabulary, and get away with it.

[jackbourassa]

24. Awsi, are you kidding me?

We should definitely run against Bush. Jesus, people like you make me nervous sometimes.

People don't like Bush...they want a new direction...they want something different...

CUE THE DEMOCRATS.

Get it?

I don't think we should lay out an entire agenda...Not yet anyway. Wait until we're in office and then we can do some good things that people will like and support. If we lay out an agenda, then we provide something the Republicans can distort and attack. Then the focus shifts away from Republican mismanagement and incompetence and towards whether the people like or dislike the Democrats and their agenda.

Remember how Clinton turned the country against the Republican momentum of 1994, by going after the "Contract with America." Our mistake in 1994, was that we didn't do it during the election.

This is like warfare...the General never leaves his troops exposed on the field and we should never shift the focus onto us, when the country clearly has a negative opinion of the governing Republicans.

As for the Gallup poll...it's BUNK! And today the CBS/NYTimes poll proves it:

Bush at 37%

Democrats lead Republicans 50% to 35%.

Keep it focused on Bush and the Republicans. That's how we win.